New employers courted

Friday, July 16, 2010By Clint Confehr, Senior Staff Writer

Lewisburg's immediate past director of economic and community development is starting a new job on Monday and Wednesday he spoke about his last written report to the city's Industrial Development Board.

Without revealing too much about his new job or the industrial prospects who might be employing county residents here, Wallace said, "There very well could be" an announcement this summer about a new business in town.

Wallace met in recent weeks with representatives of Asian Electronics Ltd., Valley Recycling and Die Press Manufacturers, according to his written report distributed at the most recent IDB meeting.

"These companies are interested in doing LED," Wallace wrote in a public record about light-emitting diode products, better known as LED which is a semiconductor light source.

"I have been asked to go to India in August," Wallace wrote in his report that was released four days after he was dismissed.

"They make a lot of different things," he said of the business prospect.

Other prospective businesses here include those in die-casting and reprocessing aluminum, he reported.

"The three are tied together with another for an expansion," Wallace said Wednesday.

In conjunction with that, Wallace anticipated a meeting on Monday, July 19, with representatives of the Tennessee department of Economic and Community Development, the South Central Development District Board, the Small Business Administration, TVA and the Labor Department.

Wallace said Lewisburg-based attorney Robert Binkley has filled in for Wallace since he was dismissed two weeks ago.

"He's been in contact with the companies here," Wallace said of Binkley who reported on July 6, and earlier, that his telephone conversations with the industrial prospects would indicate some industrial development success may be anticipated here.

Binkley indicated the economic development might mean an additional 40-50 high tech jobs in a business that would want to run on a full-time schedule around the clock. The investment here might reach $250 million in about three years, he said during the IDB meeting on July 6.

Binkley also abbreviated his remarks to maintain some confidentiality despite his report at a public meeting.